A world-first human trial of a drug designed to treat the underlying cause of type 1 diabetes has begun in Australia.

Five patients with the condition have already been dosed as part of the trial, including mum-of-two Caecilie Wickstroem Giralde, who was diagnosed last year.

University of Queensland researcher Ranjeny Thomas has spent more than a quarter of a century developing the drug, designed to rebalance the body’s immune response in people with type 1 diabetes, which affects more than 130,000 Australians.

The immune system starts to recognise insulin-producing cells in the pancreas as something it needs to attack and destroy in people with type 1 diabetes — one of dozens of auto-immune diseases in which the body starts to attack itself.

Professor Thomas, who is based at UQ’s Frazer Institute, said the experimental drug — dubbed ASITI-201 — was designed to retrain the immune system so it no longer attacks the insulin-producing pancreatic cells, known as beta cells.

The drug, given as an injection under the skin, combines fragments of a protein found in the beta cells of people with type 1 diabetes and vitamin D to calm the immune response.